The TABERNACLE

This is the next part of our study given at the church house on tuesday evening, Sept 25, 2007.

Tonight for a while at least, I want to look at this offering or offerings and in these verses we just read we see that God is asking the people for an offering to build and provide for all the needs of the tabernacle. He did not ask for the tithes here. He didn’t ask for an offering for missions here. He didn’t ask for an offering for the needy, and there is no doubt that they were all in need. He asked for an offering that would take about all they had. He had intended to supply their needs but they would have to be totally dependent on Him. He was asking for an offering for His sanctuary, His dwelling place…They had come out of Egypt laden with jewelry, but what good was that in the desert? If you were lost in the deep woods of New Brunswick for instance, what good would a lot of jewelry do you because a lot of jewelry isn’t worth much when you need food and water. You can’t trade it for anything.

God had a plan for them just as He has a plan for us today. How many know God has a plan for your life? Remember when the children of Israel left Egypt and God told them to ask the Egyptians for some things? Let’s read from Ex. 13:33 through 36. He knew they would have to bring an offering for the work of the LORD. Where did they get it ? From the Egyptians. After all they had been slaves for four hundred years or so and this was just back wages that were owed them. So when GOD told Moses “Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring Me an offering:” where did the gold and silver and all of these other materials come from? It was this plundering the Bible calls it; from Egypt. Even though it was a request it was still plundering. In the Amplified Bible ch.13 and vs. 36 it says “And they stripped the Egyptians [of those things].
There is a portion of this chapter here in Ex. 13 that is most interesting to me and it is found in verse 38. “A mixed multitude went up with them also” “A mixed multitude” Obviously there were some Egyptians and possibly some other nationalities who decided that it was better to be with God’s chosen than it was to stay in Egypt. It was a mixed multitude. GOD HAS A PEOPLE FROM EVERY NATION. Amen? In Tunisia there are 9 million people with 300 Christians…in Morocco 30 million and 2000 known Christians. In one small city in MOROCCO THERE ARE THREE (3) KNOWN Christians. How about those kind of statistics? Aren’t you grateful for the family of God here in Saint John. We are not alone. But we need to be on guard and evangelize this city. Many have never heard! We have a mixed multitude in Saint John and God has given us an opportunity to win them to Him. Perhaps instead of complaining about our immigration practices we should rather thank God for bringing these people to our shores so that we can better reach them. This life will soon be over… only what’s done for Christ is going to count; not what we accumulate here, so what difference does it make if we have more immigrants…we should seize the moment for eternity’s sake. We spend thousands of dollars sending missionaries overseas and rightly so. Here is an opportunity that won’t cost a cent…God has brought them to our doorstep. When we go to heaven pray that a mixed multitude will go with us. Amen? Let’s not be afraid of their religions, but let’s offer Christ to them and let them see that we have been with Jesus. It is important that we be aware of these religions but we do not have to be afraid of them. Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.

God said to Moses, see that you make it according to the pattern. Just so shall you make it. No substitutes. I think in many of today’s worship services we have substituted style for the Spirit.
We have replaced the moving of the Holy Spirit with copying worldly methods. Our music has conformed to the style of the world. Bro. Wickens said “we are worshipping our worship.”
Let’s get back to the pattern again. If you can’t hear the words and understand what is being said, then something is wrong with the music. Gospel music is the greatest music in the world. And that includes the old hymns. However let me say that much of the newer style music is good and appeals to everyone, but there is some of it that perhaps doesn’t have the kind of style some of us older folks like but it still helps our young people to worship. And if I complain about it, perhaps I am wrong in so doing and I am being selfish. Now you’ve got my opinion. Both sides of the coin.

We’re talking about the free will offering. From everyone who gives it willingly with his heart you shall take My offering. Does God need our offerings? Doesn’t He own everything? The cattle on a thousand hills? The wealth in every mine? Doesn’t it all belong to Him in the first place? So who reaps the benefit if we give an offering to Him? We do don’t we? But it must be from a willing heart. God doesn’t bless stinginess. Or if we give grudgingly. You might give a good amount but if it is given grudgingly then there is no blessing in that.

Look at Romans ch.12:8. Look at 2 Cor. 9:6,7 God loves a cheerful giver. And here in Ex. 25, He is saying to Moses, “let them bring an offering from a willing heart” Our offerings should be from a willing heart. Ephesians 2:19-22 says, “Now therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”
Moses had been forty days and forty nights with God on top of Mt. Sinai when God gave him these detailed instructions and the Bible tells us that Joshua went with him. As also Aaron and his two sons and seventy elders of the children of Israel, but these didn’t stay there and they never went all the way up to the top, only Moses and Joshua went all the way. God sent the rest home. And He spoke to Moses. It’s all there in ch.24
I hope you will read it this week. It is required reading for this study.
This whole tabernacle exercise was for one purpose and one purpose only and that was to point men to the fact that God wants to dwell in us through the Lord Jesus Christ and that could only come about through the shedding of blood, “for without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins.”
And that can only happen in our individual lives through our offerings. And I’m speaking of the giving of ourselves unto Him and that requires repentance. There is a common need in every man, woman, boy and girl on this earth that binds us like a thread, weaving it’s way through every life and connecting us together in our great necessity and that is our need to repent of our sins. We all have to come to that place where we surrender our very being to our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ and cast our burdens on Him.

And the Bible says in the book of Isaiah that “God has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” “All have sinned” we read in Romans. And when we think about the offerings for the building of the tabernacle, how can we not think about the offering of Himself on the cruel cross of Calvary? He suffered there for you and for me. As no man suffered for Jesus did not only endure physical pain but He was bearing the sin that we should have died for and worse than anything….rejection from the heavenly Father because He cannot look upon sin. If we understood how terrible sin is like God understands it then I think we could more easily abhor that which is evil. If we would look at sin through the eyes of God how different some of our lives would be lived. We need to pray like Jabez prayed in 1 Chronicles 4:9,10 “Oh that You would bless me indeed and enlarge my territory and that Your Hand would be with me and that You would keep me from evil that I will not cause pain” or in the KJV “that it will not grieve me” Hallelujah! Jesus offered up Himself as a free will offering, willingly, cheerfully; without a grudge…not grudgingly. God loves a cheerful giver, whether it is of your substance, your money or your life, He loves it when we give ourselves or of ourselves willingly. Paul says it in Romans 12:1,2 “I beseech you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world; but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.”
It was a truly dramatic scene there on Sinai….a black thick cloud, flashing lightening, thunder rolling, even smoke like that of a furnace, the Bible says. A voice like the sound of a trumpet
shook the entire mountain. It was a demonstration of the very Presence of Almighty God. And it was in this atmosphere that God told Moses , “of every man that gives willingly with his heart, you shall take My offering.” They were a redeemed people
They were to give willingly because they were a redeemed people.

They were redeemed by God by the shedding of blood…the blood of a lamb. We are a redeemed people and we too have been redeemed by the shedding of the Blood of the Lamb of Calvary.
Everything we have belongs to God; our houses, our automobiles, everything belongs to Him,; so we can give cheerfully and willingly because it is all His anyhow and we are His as well. How gladly and willingly we should offer back to God that with which He has entrusted us. We are to be stewards. The children of Israel gave so willingly that they gave too much and Moses had to issue a stop giving order. Imagine, in any church if the pastor announced on Sunday morning that we won’t be taking an offering for the next several weeks as you have given too much! Wouldn’t that be something? Have you ever been in a church service where that has happened?
That was the case here in the gathering of the offering for the tabernacle .We’ll come to it later.

Part three of this first lesson tomorrow. If you want me to e-mail you when there is a new post you will have to send me your address. Mine is atlmiss@nbnet.nb.ca.